Page 43 of Miss Behaved
“How did your work calls go?” she asks me, her gaze darting away.
I cross my arms over my chest and lean back against the dresser. “Is that what we’re doing now? Small talk?”
“Maybe I’m genuinely curious,” she shoots back, but her throat bobs with a hard swallow as her eyes trail over me again.
“Fair enough.” I can play this game. “They went well. Prepping for a meeting with my publisher when I get back.”
“To LA, right? That’s where you live now?”
I nod. “For the time being. Mom’s been bugging me to head back up north.”
“Home?” she says with a slight pitch to her voice.
“Seattle. You’re still there, right?”
Monica gives a sharp nod and plants her hands on the bed beside her like she’s trying to hold on for dear life. “Do you think you’ll do it? Move back, I mean?”
My answer should be no. That’s what my answer’s been every time Mom’s asked me for the past three years. The rain is bad enough, and then there are the memories. But looking into Monica’s eyes and seeing the slightest hint of something that I dare to call hope, I don’t know anymore.
“Maybe,” I say with a shrug. “Haven’t thought much about it. What about you, do you plan on staying there?”
“My friends are there. My family’s there. It’s home.” She gazes out across the room. “Steven wanted to move to New York. He was trying to convince me, but—”
“Is that the ex?”
She nods.
“Do you still have feelings for him?” My gut tightens, and I grip tighter on the dresser to prepare for her response. Is that what this impromptu discussion is all about, missing another man?
“Not him, no,” she says flatly. “Maybe the idea of him. Like thinking that we actually had a future together and that he cared about me. But that’s never enough anymore, it seems.”
I squint and try to read her expression.
“He cheated on me.” There’s hurt in her voice, and I want to punch the motherfucker in the face. “I was dumb enough to think I was walking into a proposal—candles, flowers, the whole nine yards. What I didn’t expect was to reach the end of that rose-petal train and see him banging his assistant.”
“You don’t deserve that shit,” I say through gritted teeth. To know that some idiot had the gall to do that to her, and that she witnessed it, makes me want to break this fucker’s face.
“What about you? Girl back at home?” Monica bites the inside of her lip, and I realize she’s nervous.
“No,” I say. “I’m not seeing anyone, if that’s what’s worrying you.”
She shakes her head and lets out a nervous laugh. “Okay good, because I realized after I kissed you that we never even really talked about it, and what if I was a being a total homewrecker!?”
“You’re good. No home to wreck.” I straighten up again and take a step toward her. “That’s enough small talk, don’t you think?”
I don’t mean for it to sound harsh, but my body’s on edge from my hardened cock, and Monica showing up in that tiny dress seems less and less of a coincidence by the minute.
Monica’s gaze skims my body again, and she nods as she looks me over.
“Good.” I stop a few steps away from her. “Then tell me, Mon, why did you really come here?”
Monica uncrosses her legs but keeps her thighs pressed tight, the hem of that dress riding dangerously close to the paradise between her legs.
“I was thinking about what you said,” she says, gnawing again at the inside of her lip.
“You’re going to have to refresh my memory a little, Mon,” I tell her. “I’m a bit of a talker.”
The room is moving in circles. Or maybe it’s my head. Or this conversation. But I can’t focus or think.
